My last post regarding the uber-wealthy and Obama was a tad long and probably a little confusing. Shortly after posting it I found a few articles of people smarter and more articulate than myself discussing similar themes and making similar points. I thought it would be nice to post some of their ideas and add a few of my thoughts to them.

The first article I read in either Counterpunch or Zerohedge, but I’m sorry to say I have no record of the author. If you know who wrote this let me know so that I can cite the article and author.

…….The picture presented by the report as of the end of last year, more than three years since the Wall Street crash and three full years after the coming to power of the Obama administration, was one of increasing social distress for the masses of people and expanding wealth for those at the very top. Nevertheless, the Obama administration seized on the fact that the poverty rate remained unchanged from 2010 to hail the report as a vindication of its policies.

Aside from the callous indifference to the plight of the working class reflected in such statements, they do contain an element of truth. The social disaster reflected in the findings of the Census report is not simply the result of impersonal economic forces, but very much the outcome of the policies of the Obama administration, whose entire focus from day one has been to protect and increase the wealth of the US corporate elite at the expense of the majority of the population.

Even as he expanded the bailout of Wall Street begun under Bush, Obama rejected out of hand any government programs to create jobs—such as public works projects—or any serious measures to provide relief to the unemployed, those facing foreclosure or the shutoff of utilities, or the growing ranks of the poor and malnourished.

On the contrary, he oversaw the destruction of nearly 700,000 government jobs and brutal cuts in social services.

I like the above article for its pointing out factually how Obama has not only neglected but worked against the middle class and unemployed, while serving the interests of the wealthiest of Americans.

The following is from an article by ROBERT HUNZIKER entitled Tax Free Capitalism

According to a recent extensive study (July 2012) conducted by James Henry, former chief economist of McKinsey & Company, the wealthy elite have up to $32 Trillion stashed away in offshore tax havens. This is twice the size of the U.S. economy, and remarkably, the James Henry Analysis excluded ownership of tangibles like RE, yachts, fancy cars, and entire islands (metaphorically speaking, those hidden assets comprise the largest economy in the world… a tax-free economy… a pure libertarian nation-state.)

Wow, talk about your free lunch, not to mention breakfast, dinner and every meal for your family for generations to come. Does anyone really believe that in the age of homeland security and total surveillance that our government is totally unaware of where exactly the majority of that money is? This is indicative of more that the government turning a blind eye, this must be done with the blessings of the IRS and the highest levels of our government and economic oversight.

When it comes to pointing out Corporate malfeasance and corporate abuse of the tax payer there is no better voice than Ralph Nader who recently wrote:

The Full Romney

by RALPH NADER

There was something missing from the release of a tape showing Mitt Romney pandering to fat cats in Boca Raton, Florida with these very inflammatory words: “There are 47 percent who are with him, (Obama) who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you name it. These are people who pay no income tax.” Romney said his job “is not to worry about those people.”

Hey, Mitt, why start with the 47 percent? Fully 100 percent of the nation’s 500 biggest corporations are dependent on various kinds of corporate welfare – subsidies, giveaways, bailouts, waivers, and other dazzling preferences – while many pay no tax at all on very substantial profits (see their familiar names – General Electric, Pepco, Verizon etc. – at http://www.ctj.org/pdf/notax2012.pdf).

In lock step with my observation that Obama best serves the interests of the uber-wealthy and the imperialistic globalists there is the following:

Crown Obama: It’s Over

by BEN SCHREINER

It ought, though, to be no surprise to see the elite come back home to Obama. As Glen Ford has rightly argued, Obama is not so much the lesser evil, but the “more effective evil.” That is, Obama has proven to be the best face for American capitalism—the most reliable curator for the interests of American capital. The articulate, black, charming, and ostensibly liberal Obama has demonstrated in four years to be the best man to lead the coming frontal assault on Social Security, Medicare, and public education. Just as Obama has proven over four years of indefinite detention and expanded drone warfare to be a most adept administrator of U.S. imperialism.

The above article articulates well how Obama is the man who has put a smily face on Big Brother. The following article notes how incredibly misrepresented is our military’s success regarding the drone program which Obama both touts and expanded.

Heading for a Hollow Victory

by DEEPAK TRIPATHI

Another investigation, this time by academics of Stanford and New York universities, puts the blame on President Obama for the the escalation of CIA drone attacks in which groups are selected by remote analysis of “pattern of life.” The “dominant narrative about the use of drones in Pakistan is of a surgically precise and effective tool that makes the US safer by enabling ‘targeted killings’ of terrorists.” But the report concludes that “this narrative is false.” The number of ‘high-level’ militants as a percentage of total casualties is only about 2% of [deaths]. “The US practice of striking one area multiple times, and evidence that it has killed rescuers, makes both community members and humanitarian workers afraid or unwilling to assist injured victims.” Residents in remote tribal areas across the Pakistan-Afghanistan frontier are “afraid to attend weddings and funerals.”

Imagine living in a country where drone attacks are so frequent that you are afraid of attending public functions out of fear of being attacked or killed by unmanned machines.

One of the points I was trying to make in my last post is how easy it is for Obama to play off of his false image and take us down the road of total wealth and power for the economic elite and poverty and serfdom for the rest of us. The following succinct observation by Paul Craig Roberts says it so well.

Apparently, Americans are the first people in history who are so idealistic, or so thoroughly brainwashed, that they prefer to pay for wars and bail out banks than to make their mortgage payments and help their children with student loan debt. Paul Craig Roberts

Zero Hedge is a site full of important statistics and economic commentary. The following article cited a article which clearly explains how the Federal Reserve’s efforts to keep interest rates at historic lows for the foreseeable future is having a devastating effect on not only retirees but anyone hoping to save a little money. in particular this article shows how these policies are bringing on the demise of social security and forcing it to either be privatized or forced into bankrupcy.

By law, all money deposited in the Social Security trust fund must be invested in U.S. government securities.

The average rate of interest earned by the Social Security trust fund has declined from 6.1 percent in January 2003 to 3.9 percent today, and it is going to continue to go even lower as long as the Fed continues to keep interest rates super low.

The following is one example of how the low interest rate policies of the Fed have completely devastated the retirement plans of many elderly Americans….

You can understand the impact of the invisible tax on the elderly by watching the decline of interest income from $50,000 invested in a five-year Treasury obligation. As recently as 2000, this would have yielded about 6.15 percent and an interest income of $3,075 a year. Now the same obligation is yielding 0.7 percent and an interest income of $350 a year. This is the lowest yield on this maturity of Treasury debt since the Federal Reserve started keeping an index of the yields in 1953.

But it’s more than a low interest rate. It’s an income decline of nearly 89 percent in just 12 years.

And after you account for inflation, those that put money into savings accounts today are actually losing money.

Sadly, the truth is that the Social Security trust fund might not even make it into the next decade. Most Social Security trust fund projections assume that there will be no recessions and that there will be a very healthy rate of growth for the U.S. economy over the next decade.

Returning to the theme of how Obama may be just another Bush or Romney in hip or populist clothing we have :

Mitt’s Bad Week

by ROB URIE

It was Spring of 2010, less than a year after the official end of the last recession but still deep in the throes of the Great Recession, that Barack Obama’s ‘deficit commission’ met for the first time. With close to twenty-five million people unemployed or underemployed and the number living in extreme poverty rising quickly, Mr. Obama’s central economic concern was cutting government spending. ‘Entitlements,’ rather than bankers, militarists and tax cheats, were bankrupting the country. And the co-Chairs of the commission he appointed had the solution: cut Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and corporate taxes and reduce government regulation of business.

With the faux surprise and opportunistic rants that met Mitt Romney’s 47% ‘dependent / victims’ comments, who noticed that none in his audience challenged them? And who among those who have read similar statements (link) from Barack Obama’s ‘deficit’ commission believes that Mr. Obama’s big-money supporters are of different mindsets than Mr. Romney’s? It was these very same people in Mr. Romney’s audience who Barack Obama had dedicated his first term in office to serving. And in fact, Mr. Romney’s comments were only the proverbial tip of the iceberg when it comes to the divergent descriptions of reality that the ruling class adheres to……

The self-satisfied declamations against Mr. Romney’s comments by Democrats and their supporters depend on near complete ignorance of Mr. Obama’s actual policies while in office. Who in Mr. Romney’s audience, including Mr. Romney, benefited from the unconditional bank bailouts that Obama Generals Geithner, Summers and Bernanke orchestrated? Who among them stand to benefit from Mr. Obama’s top-secret Trans-Pacific Partnership free-trade agreement that seals the power of international capital over labor and environmental regulations? And who among them stand to benefit from Mr. Obama’s build-out of the domestic infrastructure of surveillance, policing and the legal framework needed to crush rebellion? As Mitt Romney is in the process of demonstrating, it is clearly Barack Obama who is the more effective tool for promoting ruling class interests.

In previous posts I’ve noted how I’ve been a voter in search of candidate for a few decades now. On many occasions I’ve rued the fact that neither party even comes close to espousing a single policy that harmonizes with my core values and humanitarian ethics. The following article says it all so well.

Neither Candidate

by BILL QUIGLEY

Neither candidate is interested in stopping the use of the death penalty for federal or state crimes.

Neither candidate is interested in eliminating or reducing the 5,113 US nuclear warheads.

Neither candidate is campaigning to close Guantanamo prison.

Neither candidate has called for arresting and prosecuting high ranking people on Wall Street for the subprime mortgage catastrophe.

Neither candidate is interested in holding anyone in the Bush administration accountable for the torture committed by US personnel against prisoners in Guantanamo or in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Neither candidate is interested in stopping the use of drones to assassinate people in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen or Somalia.

Neither candidate is interested in fighting for a living wage. In fact neither are really committed beyond lip service to raising the minimum wage of $7.25 an hour – which, if it kept pace with inflation since the 1960s should be about $10 an hour.

Neither candidate was interested in arresting Osama bin Laden and having him tried in court.

Neither candidate will declare they refuse to bomb Iran.

Neither candidate is refusing to take huge campaign contributions from people and organizations.

Neither candidate is talking about the over 2 million people in jails and prisons in the US.

Neither candidate proposes to create public jobs so everyone who wants to work can.

Neither candidate opposes the nuclear power industry. In fact both support expansion.

Bill Quigley

When living in a nation in which its president can decide unilaterally to have someone imprisoned indefinitely without ever having to announce formal charges or provide evidence of unlawful behavior one is always vulnerable. Thanks to Obama we now live in such a country. In fact he can even have citizens killed without having to officially divulge the specific threats the person posed. If this is not scary or antithetical to the very concepts that our country was founded on, than I don’t know what is.

The following article points out how easy it would be for a caring, peaceful and thoughtful citizen such as myself to become labeled as a terrorist or a threat to our nation. It appears being a suspected terrorist is far easier than being labeled a communist in the 50’s or being labeled a public enemy like John Lennon was for espousing peace and love. In today’s america you don’t have to demonstrate, or even challenge, all you have to do is ask questions and you too can be red flagged as a terrorist.

3 Responses to “Letting the Choir Preach”

Please let me know if you’re looking for a article author for your site. You have some really good articles and I think I would be a good asset. If you ever want to take some of the load off, I’d absolutely love to write some articles for your blog in exchange for a link back to mine. Please shoot me an email if interested. Cheers!